Face It: Recognizing and Conquering the Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict at Work

Face It: Recognizing and Conquering the Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict at Work

Synopsis

"Worriers, controllers, attention-seekers, victims, fakes: these are all typical profiles of professionals who let different types of fear keep them from achieving professional success.

And fear has an even more destructive effect: It is the root of conflict, which can undermine the productivity of teams and entire organizations.

Face It identifies several basic behavioral profiles, and helps readers assess their own behaviors as well as those of coworkers. The book explains how the behaviors develop, and offers practical techniques for replacing fear and mistrust with mutual respect and rebuilding the sense of shared commitment to common goals.

Like a session with a good personal coach, Face It will give readers new strength to face their fears, and help them work more productively as individuals and with colleagues. Conquering their demons will allow them to establish a pattern of improved performance, self-esteem, and personal freedom."

Excerpt

Face it. As negative as it may sound, fear is a pretty big player in the business world. We try to be positive, we talk about confidence and the need for a positive attitude, but even if we’ve got things under control ourselves, many people around us seem to be wrestling with their fears much of the time.

Fear shows up in many ways in business.

Think about the people who work around you. Perhaps you know someone who is afraid of confrontation, so she never addresses problems with people head on. You may have a colleague in sales who is reluctant to cold call or nail down customer commitments because of a core fear of rejection. His sales volume isn’t as high as he knows it could be. Maybe you know a leader whose fear of failure holds him back from taking risks. Forward momentum in his organization is stifled. Most offices have at least one employee who is so afraid of being judged negatively that silence is their norm. Coworkers don’t get access to the intelligence available to them.

All these situations are ripe for conflict as people hide from each other, aggress against each other, misunderstand each other, miscommunicate with each other. Besides hurting their own careers and the careers of those around them, they are limiting the success of their organizations and, unfortunately, limiting the harmony of their relationships outside work. There is no doubt that fear is a common obstacle to personal and organizational success. The characteristics of the worriers, controllers, fakes, and other quintessential business types described in the first part of this book can all be traced to fear. They are the people I see most frequently in my coaching practice. The presence of fear as the core driver of their patterned behavior has emerged loud and clear. And I have seen . . .